MIT President Susan Hockfield will visit Portugal from November 24–26, 2009. She will meet with MIT Portugal Program faculty, students, graduates and industry affiliates—and spend time getting to know Portugal, on the first visit by a sitting MIT President to the country. She is also scheduled to meet with Portugal’s Prime Minister, José Sócrates, to discuss the achievements of the Program to date and reassert MIT’s commitment to its collaboration with Portugal. A Full Agenda  MIT President Susan Hockfield President Hockfield—who will be awarded a joint honorary degree by three Portuguese universities: Instituto Superior Técnico of the Technical University of Lisbon (IST-UTL), the New University of Lisbon (UNL), and the University of Porto—also will attend the first ceremony to date during which graduates of MIT Portugal executive master’s programs will be awarded their certificates. In addition, President Hockfield will participate in three high-level forums organized by MIT Portugal. The first will be about a research and development energy initiative to design and implement sustainable energy pathways for Portugal. The second event, hosted by MIT Portugal National Director Professor Paulo Ferrão and MIT Professor John Fernández, will feature the mayors of Lisbon and and Porto along with other municipal leaders and experts, and will address the creation of “sustainable cities” in Portugal and beyond. The third forum will discuss "StemCellnet," an initiative to foster new knowledge in stem cell engineering, in Portugal but with international participation. (Sustainable energy and transportation systems, and stem cell engineering for regenerative medicine, are key components of MIT Portugal research and education programs and projects.) During her visit, President Hockfield will also meet with senior government officials, including: Mariano Gago, Minister of Science, Technology and Higher Education; Manuel Heitor, Portugal’s Secretary of State for Science Technology and Higher Education; and Carlos Zorrinho, Portugal’s Secretary of State for Energy and Innovation. And she will meet with CEOs of companies that, as affiliates of MIT Portugal, are closely involved in MIT Portugal projects, as well as rectors and deans of universities that make up the Program’s educational consortia—the first consortia of higher education institutions in Portugal. President Hockfield, the 16th president of MIT and the first woman to serve in the role, is also a professor of neuroscience at the Institute. She has galvanized the MIT community around the challenges of energy, the environment and sustainability. Under President Hockfield’s leadership, the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI) is in the forefront of framing energy and environment issues in the United States, and in advancing energy research and education. In March 2008, largely as a result of the MIT Portugal collaboration, Portugal became the first Public Sustaining Member of MITEI.
 Opinion article in Público by Prof. Paulo Ferrão, National Director of the MIT Portugal Program, on the visit of President Hockfield to Portugal. (Prof. Ferrão discusses President Hockfield's identification of multidisciplinary, integrated research efforts as critical to the future of science and the modernization of the university system, and the ways in which MIT Portugal is bringing this new paradigm to Portugal.)
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